A conventional karaoke system plays a requested pre-recorded song that is mixed with a vocal performance of a singer. Typically, lyrics of the requested song are displayed on a monitor to aid the singer to sing along. A set of instrumental songs are played through the Karaoke system for the singer to sing along with.
Such a conventional karaoke system comprises: (1) a mixer that combines the singer's real-time voice signal from a microphone with the pre-recorded background song/music signal from a player, (2) an amplifier that receives the mixed signal from the mixer to provide amplification or gain boosting, and (3) one or more speakers to output the mixed and amplified audio signal. For stereo output two speakers are used and for mono output one speaker is used.
However, though this configuration works for many standard audio applications, because the vocal and music signals are pre-mixed into one signal for speaker output, the vocals tend to lack definition. Further, the vocals have to compete with the music for sound space, thereby often sounding muddy, far away and without direction.
There is, therefore, a need for a sound system that provides an additional channel dedicated to microphone output along with the conventional output of pre-mixed music and microphone output. There is also a need for such a system to allow the microphone output to be heard clearly with directional presence, without having to compete with the pre-mixed music for sound space.